I Just got a $25 charge on my PayPal from Greg.... (3 Viewers)

Trihonda

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So, I just looked back to see when I paid my "other forum" membership fee, and I just noticed a $25 charge from last month from "Greg". I figured my last charge would have been in 2013... I didn't realize it was an automatic annual charge. I thought you'd have to sign up each year... In light of all the issues, should I challenge this charge? If yes, how do do this! It's been one month, or just shy. I see no,reason why I should pay for a service I'm not getting...

Thoughts?
 
Anyone know the best way to opt out so we don't keep paying an obvious money leech?
 
I was charged $25 way back in April, I was annoyed because I never sign up for anything that is auto-renewal, but I didn't dispute it. I went to the "contact us" section of CT to "cancel my membership," but in your case I would dispute with paypal because the site is not being properly maintained.
 
Under contact us and all I see is the ability to generate an email. Where did you find a cancel subscription tab?
 
Cancel through your PayPal account. There is a page for "subscription payments" or something like that. You'll find the automatic renewal listed there. Canceled mine last week.

Same here; canceled mine through PayPal.
 
i think dennis mentioned in another thread that he was recently charged for his vendor forum as well. per JM's post on the big blue wall, Greg has been MIA for months and hasn't responded to any attempt at contact. pretty horrendous behavior where you have customers/clients auto-renewing memberships and you're not even attempting to provide an acceptable product.

in general, i agree with spike that you have to pick your battles, but i would be pretty damn annoyed if i were still paying for a service that wasn't being provided and where there is literally no evidence of any attempt by the seller to repair the problems.
 
Cancel through your PayPal account. There is a page for "subscription payments" or something like that. You'll find the automatic renewal listed there. Canceled mine last week.

Thanks! I just did this...paypal.com/myaccount/settings/ payment settings / preapproved payments, look for the name and click on it, click "cancel."
 
The fine print at the Blue Wall says that anyone who signs up for a supporter or premium supporter status will be charged annually for the membership. Honestly, I'd call PayPal customer service. They will give you a list of recurring payments and ask you which one(s) you'd like to cancel. I was finished in probably less than three minutes. Sorry this happened to you, Spike, and everyone else. The admin at the Blue Wall made it easy to become a supporter, but left everyone in the dark as to how to opt out.
 
Canceled mine yesterday. Unfortunately, I just paid the renewal in September. Just chalking it up to a loss.
 
The admin at the Blue Wall made it easy to become a supporter, but left everyone in the dark as to how to opt out.

obviously (see above) i'm not in the business of defending Greg, but it's totally standard for a subscription to auto-renew. check out any other podcasts or sites or whatever else you subscribe to and the default is auto-renewal more than 90% of the time. i guess it could have been pointed out in the solicitation of subscriptions, but i don't think there's anything wrong with failing to do so. the problem is management of the site, not auto-renewing subscriptions.
 
obviously (see above) i'm not in the business of defending Greg, but it's totally standard for a subscription to auto-renew. check out any other podcasts or sites or whatever else you subscribe to and the default is auto-renewal more than 90% of the time. i guess it could have been pointed out in the solicitation of subscriptions, but i don't think there's anything wrong with failing to do so. the problem is management of the site, not auto-renewing subscriptions.

This for sure. I also feel like most places tell you how to cancel a subscription, or it's pretty easily found. Not so much on Greg's site.
 
I did this yesterday. The info was in the subscription email I received from PP when I signed up for Supporter. Glad I kept that email, as it is not on the other site.
 
i would never do it through the site anyway - just go right to the source, paypal, and go through the process there (not difficult iirc from having to do a couple of times).
 
i think dennis mentioned in another thread that he was recently charged for his vendor forum as well. per JM's post on the big blue wall, Greg has been MIA for months and hasn't responded to any attempt at contact. pretty horrendous behavior where you have customers/clients auto-renewing memberships and you're not even attempting to provide an acceptable product.

in general, i agree with spike that you have to pick your battles, but i would be pretty damn annoyed if i were still paying for a service that wasn't being provided and where there is literally no evidence of any attempt by the seller to repair the problems.

jbutler is correct. I got charged $549 on Oct. 23, 2014, after the problems started. Sorta like getting charged for that last drink on the Titanic while your feet are getting wet. There was just enough confusion in the past few weeks, and I guess I hoped, like everyone else, that Greg was on it and would fix Chiptalk.

I have disputed the charge with Paypal, and offered to accept a pro-rated refund. I doubt anything will come of it. I will cancel through Paypal, too.

Back when Greg moved to monetize Chiptalk, I think this was the beginning of the end. I knew it was not good news, argued against it, and was afraid it would spiral down to this -- an ugly, sad ending where the paying members got screwed. We all hoped for the best, and we had faith that Greg would never let this happen. We were wrong.

I feel bad for the "life" members as well.

Happily, it's a new day in the chip world, and PCF is getting stronger every day. I know Tommy and can tell you simply this: You won't find a better guy. He created this site because he disagreed with what was going on with Chiptalk. It's a new day here, and things are looking up.
 
Thanks! I just did this...paypal.com/myaccount/settings/ payment settings / preapproved payments, look for the name and click on it, click "cancel."

Thanks for the path joepro. Just cancelled mine. Like brains, I just renewed in September. So it goes.
 
I never was a paying supporter of CT. I was there since 2006 or so. I and many, many others contributed to the site with info and opinions on chips and other things POKER. It was the members there who made the site great. Then it was offered for the resource they had (members) to PAY for the priviledge of BEING the resource that made the site good. I passed on it as it didn't make any sense to me to pay. To those who did pay, kudos to you for supporting a site you wanted to keep functioning. It isn't currently. But you see right here at PCF - competition offers other options. There are enough chip-a-holics out there to keep the interest alive.
Thanks to Tommy for this site, and I'm glad to see it blossoming the way it is now. I have never been asked to pay for a classified ad here. As far as that goes, I had a private exchange with Greg at CT in which I suggested that the classifieds there generated a huge number of hits to the site through google. He checked it out and confirmed it was true. You'd think that would have been enough, but no, they had to charge and raise the rates for ads. Then the voluntary sponsorships, and the hierarchy established by how much you paid. I'm not against profit at all, it just seemed to me that they milked that site for as much as they could get out of the members: Again, I'm stating that the site was nothing without it's members.
I have been here for little while now. This is a good place and I hope it stays that way.
 
A lot has been said about Lifetime Supporters, but the truth is that anyone who was a Premium Supporter longer than four years contributed more financially to the blue sea scrolls than Lifetime Supporters, and received less in return.

I was one of those, and did so voluntarily. I knew it was cheaper to opt for Lifetime Support option, but felt the site deserved my ongoing financial support. I no longer feel that way.
 
Does not surprise me coming from you, being the dedicated chipper you are. I chose the lifetime deal because it was the cheapest option, but still wanted to contribute......oh yeah and receive all that swag! Looking around here though, I like it much better!
 
I wrote PayPal and explained I didn't think I should get auto charged for a website subscription, for a website that no longer works. They said they'd have to contact Greg to authorize, review the refund request, and low and behold I just got a notice from PayPal of a $25 refund from Greg ... What do you know?
 
I received at PM on chiptalk overnight from Greg. He refunded the auto-renew sponsorship fee through Paypal, and wished me well. Looks like he's doing the right thing, given the situation.
 
I don't know him. Never really talked to him. So I didn't have an opinion, really, other than the site turned to crap, and I was hearing from others that he's been MIA. Glad he stepped up to refunded for you (and me). However, I'd gladly give the $25 back if only to keep the site archived so we could see old posts (all the knowledge lost makes me very sad).

I've tried to access old threads to save photos, etc.., and it won't even let me into the forum whatsoever. :(

- - - - - - - - - Updated - - - - - - - - -

The old site seems back up. I'm glad... for archival reasons. There are years of vast chip knowledge that this other site contains. However, I'm not sure how this other site can maintain short term credibility, or long term viability. What? Are we all supposed to go back and forget all that's happened? I don't really know. Sounds like Greg is trying to the right thing, but that boat might have sprung a few too many leaks to allow it to sail reliably?

I personally have been a PCF member for a while now, and have always thought the site was way better run, and free. When I made comments on the other site about the cost of classifieds and such, I got severely flamed ("how dare I question Greg's moniterization of the site")... Now, seems like everyone is singing a different tune.

This site is actually way better. It doesn't have the history of CT, but the one thing it was lacking was a bigger user base, which is seems to have now.

Game on!
 
Here's my thoughts, since you asked for them....Trihonda, I've seen you pop a pot $25 bucks and not think a thing about it. Shut off your paypal and write it off. If you're perturbed at him enough to feel it necessary to get your money back, that's certainly your call and I wouldn't speak ill of you doing it, but I wouldn't do it personally. 10/12ths of $25 just isn't enough to go through the hassle for me.
 
I received at PM on chiptalk overnight from Greg.

I did, too, responding to my initial PM wondering why my "Bronze Sponsor" status hadn't kicked in yet after a couple days. I've sent a request to convert my one-year plan to a one-month plan. I'm hopeful that chiptalk will recover somewhat, but I'm skeptical that it will ever be able to return to its former glory, at least in the short term. Too little too late, I'm afraid.

PCF has momentum!
 
Here's my thoughts, since you asked for them....Trihonda, I've seen you pop a pot $25 bucks and not think a thing about it. Shut off your paypal and write it off. If you're perturbed at him enough to feel it necessary to get your money back, that's certainly your call and I wouldn't speak ill of you doing it, but I wouldn't do it personally. 10/12ths of $25 just isn't enough to go through the hassle for me.

You're absolutely right.. $25 isn't a big deal. I think it was more of a surprise for me, as I didn't realize it was a re-occurring auto-deducted thing. My PP balance isn't huge, so when it binks a $25 charge a few weeks back, I was like WTH? However, with the implosion of CT almost right afterwards, it was enough for me to ask PP for clarification, and only AFTER the site went completely nuclear and nothing was accessible (primarily out of principle).

I have absolutely nothing against Greg. As stated, I don't know him. I tried not to get embroiled in the other site's politics. I wish that site all the best, and most certainly will visit. I'm still a member. Just not a paying member ATM. Greg promptly provided me a refund, for which I've given him credit as being a stand-up guy in that regard. To be honest, had I known the site would be back up in some capacity, I'd never have requested PP look at the transaction. And If I knew for certain the site was going to remain up, I'd ship Greg back the $25 for 2015 membership. No hard feelings on my part.
 
Oh my! I just saw this post over there.
No sugar coating here. What a set! Ha Ha!

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